BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Friday accused Meta and TikTok of breaching the bloc’s landmark social media regulation.
The EU executive said Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok all failed in their obligations to give researchers access to data from their platforms. The two Meta platforms also failed on three obligations to empower users in flagging illegal content and challenging moderation decisions, it said.
The platforms now have the right to reply to the Commission’s allegations under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Should they fail to convince the EU executive, they risk fines of up to 6 percent of annual global revenue.
“We disagree with any suggestion that we have breached the DSA, and we continue to negotiate” with the Commission on these issues, Meta spokesperson Ben Walters said. Meta has “introduced changes to our content reporting options, appeals process and data access tools since the DSA came into force and are confident that these solutions match what is required under the law in the EU,” he said.
TikTok spokesperson Paolo Ganino said the firm was “reviewing the European Commission’s findings, but requirements to ease data safeguards place the DSA and [General Data Protection Regulation] in direct tension. If it is not possible to fully comply with both, we urge regulators to provide clarity on how these obligations should be reconciled.”
Ganino added it had “made substantial investments in data sharing and almost 1,000 research teams have been given access to data through our Research Tools to date.”
The moves are part of ongoing efforts to enforce the bloc’s digital rules. Meta is the second American platform to be accused of breaking the rules: Elon Musk’s X was accused of doing so more than a year ago, in July 2024. China’s Temu and AliExpress have also been accused of breaches.
The EU executive opened its investigation into Meta in April last year and expanded it in May.
TikTok’s probe started in February 2024, and was extended twice in April and in December (with the April section closed after TikTok agreed to pull the product in question from Europe).
None of the findings have so far led to fines.
Friday’s findings said Facebook and Instagram didn’t make a system to allow users to flag illegal content sufficiently user-friendly, and also that the companies designed the interface deceptively. The platforms also made a difficult interface to use in order to challenge content moderation decisions, the Commission said.
Several other parts of the probes remain open, including on how the platforms protect minors and their role in election manipulation.
The Trump administration has launched repeated attacks on the EU’s DSA law, calling it “Orwellian” and accusing the bloc of censorship.
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